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The Judicial branch just grew some balls!
Citizenship may yet mean something.
The Bill of Rights, yeah that old paper in the glass case, may yet still mean what it says. And is therefore maybe worth keeping.
That the government can’t just do whatever and whenever it wants, to an American citizen, even in the name of national security, and use the military to boot!
Here is the poop at truthdig, Hedges’ hangout.
I’m having some ‘really’ stiff coffee to celebrate the resurrection of our Magna Carta rights. Yeah, that 800 year old document that began the end of tyranny. Well ol’ King John just rolled over in his grave, cause we’re still holding him to it: “Ya can’t just go around arresting folks you don’t like anymore!”
History in the making is the best kind to read about.
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Pretty fine Judge Forrest believes the Bill of Rights actually means something, isn’t it? Kevin wrote about it the other day, and has an update linking a second post announcing the administration’s appeal (within 24 hours).
I guess I hadn’t even noticed that Hedges hadn’t written about it yet.
Thanks, hermit. Great to have something to celebrate, even if later…
Yeah, I’m bad about missing stuff, got caught up with several discussions this weekend and missed Kevin last Thursday. Chris just posted this morning which is the first I’d heard.
The damned MSM didn’t give it a peep this weekend. Fricken bastards don’t even care what was really important during the week, although with the ME embassies under assault, Bibi, and Chicago teachers I suppose they have an excuse to skim over civil liberties. They do it often enough.
Kevin’s report and comments are great, thanks Wendy. There might be others in my time warped zone.
Anyway, Whhoooppeee!
I’ll join your Whoooopeee, and raise ya a Booyah! (I wrote about this other victory recently):
Hooray for Royce Lamberth, and F OBomba and his ‘Memo of Understanding’ that just tried to make an end around one of the few decent SCOTUS decisions about detainees and habeas corpus.
So, yeppers, in this land where justice and rights are being disintegrated further every day…these are pretty feel-good stories.
And: Happy #S17, by the by. Occupy Together!
Hummm…kind of makes you winder how much this has to do with Islamic terrorists or American “terrorists”.
Two Magna Carta dust-offs in one day!
Haven’t felt this much optimism for humanity in quite some time. Another toast is in order. ;^)
Occupy is one today, thats right! He/she is going to grow into a major governmental pain-in-ass someday, I hope. Just got to keep feeding this kinda good news to ‘em.
Someday, when Occupy Day grows up to become the first non-religious International Holiday, there will be fireworks to commemorate the last revolt humanity needed. ;^)
Ha, thats right cmaukonen, we can breath a little easier using the T word today!
Bottom line, the MOU will have to spell it out, what exactly is a terrorist and just what is being terrorized, quantify it, how much fear for how long, etc. Make those constitutional lawyers earn their keep. No more secretive witchcraft that plays “peek-a-boo” with our rights. ;^)
“The Judicial branch just grew some balls!”
Ummm…you DO mean “ovaries”, doncha? I know you do. %^D
Happy Constitution Day, y’all.
I prefer the more dual use ‘huevos‘ for that reason, timestickin’. ;o)
Scary, scary stuff.
Could Obama, who is actively fighting to turn segments of the military into his own personal, domestic branch Waffen SS, be considered crazy? Evil? What? He’s fighting for the ability to command the military to “seize U.S. citizens and control the streets.” And not just seize them. Obama wants the right to put them into military prisons and to throw away the key. These are Hitler-like ambitions, and no, I don’t think he means us well. I think he means us harm. If people aren’t frightened by Obama, they should be. His vision for America seems to be a full-blown Fascist country with Nazi overtones. He has always been a psychotic narcissist, but his sickness is out of control.
C.H.’s conclusion:
God bless Chris Hedges. Fight on.
x2
I wouldn’t go all in on that much of a sinister nature, but his acceptance of the Super-President cape that Bush left in the closet has concerned all of us.
Agree with you that Chris Hedges is a welcome blessing. I ordered his latest book and will be following him more closely going forward. Someone should give him a job.
I hope the appellate court will quickly concur and send it on to the Robert’s court. If O gets re-elected, it will be easier for their consciences to restrict the powers of a Dem President.
Unfortunately this ruling, which the Obama administration has already appealed, will probably not stand based on the Feinstein amendment in the NDAA which again throws it to the death by AUMF interpretation wolves , where this all began.
Marcy Wheeler has some good anaysism of it at emptywheel, as always .
Really upset I missed Chris on the book forum the other day here on FDL.
It’s awfully sweet that you don’t want to see anything sinister in Obama….
Call me a cynic, call me a pessimist, call me a realist, call me whatever you like, but Obama can and will ignore the injunction.
Even if the Supreme Court itself rules against the law, Obama will ignore it and no one will stop him. Yes, we are at that point.
Both.
I think “both” is the correct answer, too.
Maybe my comment was too ominous, but in the future, I picture a lot of Homeland Security jobs (Obama’s own special military branch) being offered to Iraq and Afghanistan vets who have seen unspeakable horrors and are psychologically damaged. This comment by Ian Welsh speaks volumes:
Would it be such a leap to think that Obama, who certainly sees himself as a powerful domestic authoritarian ruler (or he wouldn’t be fighting so hard for the right to use his military against U.S. citizens), has no qualms about harming us? The man has evidently been told over and over that he’s the most powerful man on earth, and he–a narcissist–is ill-equipped to face the reality that he is just a mere mortal. He’s dangerous.
Undoubtedly both. O as CIC, has and continues to arrest/detain on suspicion of an amorphous definition of a terrorist, or supporter, or even sympathizer (goes to freedom of conscience) which is virtually limitless; and is the crux of the matter that no one can really know if they somehow are subject to violation.
Does a call for peace support the terrorists?
It has become all too easy to prosecute this form of “warfare of ideas” which are fundamentally only a religious difference in cultural expectations. What we call the war on terror is a religious feud that has gotten out of control.
Chris Hedges justifiably is threatened in reporting an interview with a known terrorist. How can any form of dialog ever begin, if your not permitted to even talk to a member of a terrorist organization, which you could then be considered as thereby having supported such, by voicing their positions.
The entire detention criterion is too whimsical, even relying on vague notions of jurisdictional ambiguity to sustain Guantanamo, e.g., and as such is its threat to our concrete freedoms.
O, in his Super Presidential cape, that Lincoln and FDR used, along with Bush, imo, doesn’t want the Judicial branch to chime in to Presidential war-powers, because it would indeed be messy and time consuming, and soldiers are not policeman, per se, who are held much more personally accountable for their actions. But it must be done.
A war with no state, no army, no uniforms, no delineated battlefields, is then only a war on right and wrong thought distinctions; differences of opinion, that like a feud can never be satisfactorily resolved, the hate just gets stronger. No one surrenders, no cease fires. Its guerilla warfare on steroids, anytime, anywhere, anybody with opposing opinion or grudge can play.
Of course our MIIC PTB love this profitable ‘warfare forever’ state of affairs, that creates more customers with every new grudge created by each and every sale of a profitable arrest or profitable death. Its win/win, one of us die, they win, one of “them,” they win again.
The only way to begin to reduce this profitable hate machine, is for the Supreme Court to define terrorists. In so doing, we may begin to understand what exactly is going on. They could better define the parameters of this quarrel. If they would just reduce the level of allowed use of force and detention, there may be some light at the end of this hateful tunnel we are all trapped in.